The Epstein Sabbath Meal Invite Strategy and Operations Guide

Many people have asked about why we extend invitations for Sabbath meals so far in advance. The purpose of this document is to explain the rationale behind the strategy as well as provide the interested reader with the capability to execute upon the same strategy, should s/he desire.

Before beginning, there are a number of built-in family rules which need to be understood.

Built-in Family Rules

1. In any given month, it is a requirement that one full Sabbath (both meals) be only the nuclear Epstein family (Tamar, Jeremy, Calanit, and Erez)
2. On any one Sabbath, we will never be with other people for both meals. We will dine with others for only one of the two meals.
3. In a given month, we prefer to host two meals and leave one Sabbath open to receive an invitation, should it be forthcoming.

Process

We maintain a list consisting of people we wish to invite to our home for a Sabbath meal. This list contains two types of families.

These are:

• families who have been kind enough to invite us to share a meal with them
• families we wish to have over because we either like them or wish to get to know them better.

The list is prioritized according to a number of criteria.

Every six months, Tamar and I sit down with the entire list. We look at a few variables.

1. which people do we want to make sure we have over for a meal in the ensuing “wave” ? (note: each wave represent approximately 6 months of time. Wave 1 involved 34 families and 110 individuals. Wave 2 had 29 families and 98 individuals. Wave 3 stats are here. You can use that information for benchmarking purposes.)

2. the number of people in each family (including children who require seats) as this is a key factor since our table capacity is a non-variable. (Of course, we could add additional table capacity by bringing up another table from the basement, but that's more work for Jeremy and it also decreases the heimish coefficient.)

3. the likelihood that a given family will enjoy the company of another given family. Much like one creates matches for a potential mate, we endeavor to ensure that our guests will have a good time not just with us (not always a guarantee of course) but with the other invited guests as well. Key issues here may include, but not always, political outlook, religious leanings, personality types, and age of children.

The next step in the process is to create Sabbath meal groups (SMG's) which align to the aforementioned variables. After each group is selected, the placement process begins.

1. each group is labeled as “A” “B” or “C” etc. This is not a priority necessarily, just a means for group identification.

2. we identify the Sabbaths in a given month on which we would like to NOT host people (e.g. we're traveling out of town or we know we're having out of town guests, etc.)

3. we also take into account the likelihood that people will be around (e.g. Thanksgiving weekend or 4^th of July are frequent travel dates for many people).

4. we then place each SMG onto an available Sabbath.

5. using a pre-written invitation template via email and mail merge via Word, Excel, and Outlook, we extend invitations to family representatives. The note includes the 4 page terms and conditions sheet, aka “Coming to the Epstein's for a Meal-Preparation Document.”

6. since we're inviting people so far in advance, we have a very high success rate in terms of securing commitments for meals. Clearly, if people know they are unavailable, we will mix and match as necessary.

Rationale/Benefits

There are a number of time-saving and operational benefits to this approach.

1. We save time on a weekly basis. Instead of sitting down every Sunday night or Monday night and trying to figure out whom to invite, then extending invitations and playing phone tag for 2 days, we know exactly what is happening on a given Sabbath.

2. Shopping is made easier. For a given month, Tamar knows that she will need to purchase and prepare a meal on specific dates. Knowing this allows her to more effectively coordinate her activities to accomplish this goal and minimize on last minute hassles that are stressful and time drainers.

3. We get who we want. Rarely do we find out that people are not available 3 months in advance. We've secured their participation. Furthermore, since we look at the meal invitation process holistically, we tend to invite more people who may otherwise fall out of our “comfort zone.” This allows us to extend and expand our sphere of friends.

4. We stay focused on the important objective of hosting our friends, new friends, and family. It's easy on a given week to feel that it is stressful and prefer to “lay low.” With kids, every week is like that. Instead of giving in to the natural tendency towards lethargy, our previous commitments compel us to host our guests. This ALWAYS works in our favor.

(Earlier today I was teaching Calanit a part of the Torah portion we read. There was a great piece on the value of having guests. It's in the image in this post. Click to enlarge and read.)

Dedication
The documentation of this strategy is dedicated to Aviva Janus. She stated such an admiration for the system that she wanted a "how-to" guidebook. Secondary dedication to Talia/Yoni Engelhart for their intellectual curiosity.

An assist to my cousin Ben for editing.